I’ll say it. Conchita Wurst is freakin’ hot. And has a helluva set of pipes.
I think the song is fine… and may have won all on its own; with the whole statement thing (do we really still need that at Eurovision?) she will never know if she won with her song or with the ‘message’. A pity really.
Austrians with facial hair are a little unnerving.
Unnerving but weirdly captivating.
The UK song was just dreek and dull, really plodding and pedestrian.
Glad that a bearded TV won it
You have to grow them to ward off koalas.
Am I the only one who still thinks of that Father Ted Eurovision episode every time the contest comes around?
. . . OK, OK, so I am, fine . . . 
I’m sure I’m not the only American who thought the Europe-wide battle of the tacky pop songs was just something zany Graham Linehan made up.
Gotta say, this wasn’t the best show that Eurovision has ever put out there. Very few zany national costumes, no unicycles, no falsetto Dracula lookalikes … Conchita’s song was definitely one of the best, and I’m delighted that it won over Sweden and Holland’s respective snoozefests.
That a worthy song and performance won wrapped in a message of acceptance and tolerance is a good thing, I think.
I also think that whoever was responsible for the stage and light effects should win an extra award – the background and floor effects were completely different for each song and visually stunning.
I’ve lived in Europe for almost 18 years now and have seen Eurovision every year since my arrival. I couldn’t love it more; it’s always fun and something different from everything else out there!
I just want to note that Israel won the Eurovision with a transgender singer *16 years *ago. Admittedly, she didn’t have a beard, but it’s not as if this is some newly-discovered tolerance.
Conchita is transvestite, not transgendered. She’s said so herself.
Still and all it’s a positive thing.
I’ve been told that Eurovision hasn’t been about the music for years — that it’s all about politics nowadays.
Given the state of European/world politics, that wouldn’t surprise me.
The problem is they now have semi-finals. They restrict the final to 25 or so songs and about 40 countries want to enter. So they have semi-finals.
It’s here you get those loonies who have a bit of fun, or the over-dramatic divas getting tortured by the wind machines to the accompaniment of a backing troupe of viking stormtroopers. Unfortunately, these generally get voted out here and so don’t make the final show.
OK, when did full beards come into style for drag characters? I’m always having to catch up, really…
I liked this bit from the Wikipedia entry on Tom Neuwirth/Conchita Wurst:
I suppose that Russia once sending T.A.T.U. was OK because the official line now is that they were actually *fake *underage lesbians all along? And turning it into a hotbed of sodomy would probably improve the contest.
Sad, yes. In the last years before semis you could always count on, say, Latvia, to show up with an act that could be summarized as “Lighten up, what sort of idiot takes this seriously?”, while someone else, would bring someone who seemed to believe in all earnestness that their song, in the style of circa 1982 dance synthpop, was the last best hope to end war and hunger. The juxtaposition was delightful.
Yawn.
Bring back Clodagh Rodgers and “Jack in the Box,” I say.
More seriously, I looked at the list of winners from the last 50 years, and recognize one song- Abba’s "Waterloo’.